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Policy

A doctor puts his hand over his chest during a "House call" rally against proposed healthcare reform legislation at the Capitol in Washington November 5, 2009. (Photo: Reuters)

A doctor puts his hand over his chest during a “House call” rally against proposed healthcare reform legislation at the Capitol in Washington November 5, 2009. (Photo: Reuters)

America’s healthcare system is a mess, largely because government intervention (Medicare, Medicaid, ObamaCare, and the tax code’s healthcare exclusion) have produced a system where consumers almost never directly pay for their medical services.

This “third-party payer” system basically means market forces are absent. Consumers have very little reason to focus on cost, after all, if taxpayers or insurance companies are picking up the tab for nearly 90 percent of expenses.

As a result, we get ever-higher prices.

But we also get a lot of featherbedding and inefficiency because providers want to take advantage of this system.

Athenahealth offered some sobering analysis on the system last year.

The number of physicians in the United States grew 150 percent between 1975 and 2010, roughly in keeping with population growth, while the number of healthcare administrators increased 3,200 percent for the same time period.Yes, that’s 3,200 percent in 35 years…the growing number of administrators is…driven by…ever-more-complex regulations. (To cite just a few industry-disrupting regulations, consider the Prospective Payment System of 1983; the Health Insurance Portability & Accountability Act of 1996; and the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Act of 2009.) Critics say the army of administrators does little to relieve the documentation burden on clinicians, while creating layers of high-salaried bureaucratic bloat in healthcare organizations.

And here’s the chart that succinctly captures so much of what is wrong with America’s government-distorted healthcare regime.

By the way, the chart implies that the rising number of administrators is driven by additional regulations from Washington. I certainly won’t disagree with the notion that more red tape is counterproductive, but I suspect that third-party payer is the primary cause of the problem.

Third-party payer is what causes prices to climb, and then the government and insurance companies respond with various cost-control measures that require lots of paperwork and monitoring. Hence, more administrators.

In other words, third-party payer is the problem and regulations and administrators are both symptoms.

I’ll close by noting that I shared a version of this chart last year and warned that the numbers might be exaggerated. But there’s no question about the trend of more bureaucracy, red tape, and inefficiency.

The U.S. healthcare sector is a mess largely

Opinion

There’s an ongoing debate about Trump’s endgame on trade. Is he simply a crude protectionist, or is he disrupting the status quo in order to force other nations to reduce their protectionist barriers?

I hope it’s the latter, though I fear it’s the former.

But one thing I can state with certainty is that the President misreads early American history. Here’s a tweet that he recently sent about how America became a strong and rich country during an era when the federal government relied on tariffs to generate revenue.

Trump is partially right. The United States became a rich country in the 1800s when tariffs were a primary source of revenue.

But I have argued that America became rich because of other policies.

  • The federal government was very small, with the budget consuming on average less than 3 percent of the economy’s output.
  • Prior to that awful day in 1913, there was no income tax, no payroll tax, no capital gains tax, no death tax, and no corporate tax.
  • There was no sprawling and intrusive administrative state imposing costly regulations that hinder the private sector.

No, the United States was not a laissez-faire paradise in the 1800s. I’m simply making the case that the economy had more than enough “breathing room” to generate ever-higher levels of national prosperity.

Meaning the economy grew, not because of tariffs, but because other bad policies didn’t exist.

And I’m not the only with this perspective. Eric Boehm’s article in Reasonconcludes with an offer to trade the income tax for a modest tariff.

After the ratification of the Constitution, the very first law passed by the new Congress was the Tariff Act of 1789. It imposed an 8 percent tax on pretty much all imports into the United States, with the revenue from the tariffs used to fund the new national government and to pay down debts accumulated during the Revolutionary War. …those early tariffs did solve a very practical revenue problem for the early United States government. In those days before H&R Block (indeed, before income taxes) collecting taxes was a difficult prospect. It was much easier to post-up customs officials at every port and collect taxes on the physical stuff that came ashore than to send tax collectors to every town and borough across 13 states to collect taxes from the populace—especially since many of those would-be taxpayers weren’t entirely sold on the idea of a powerful central government, and had a recent history of armed rebellion against excessive taxation. …If Trump wants to make the argument that America should use tariffs to raise revenue, like we did in the 1790s, he better have a plan to abolish all federal taxes on income, investments, and labor. If he wants to have that discussion, well, I’ll listen.

Brian Domitrovic, writing for Forbes, hits the nail on the head. He starts by agreeing with Trump’s assertion about strong growth in the era of tariffs.

…there is a general sense, among the American public, that previously in history, when the American economy really grew at great rates in the extensive stretch of time before the era of free-trade ideology after 1945, we had tariffs. Tariffs and American prosperity went together. Why not try to get that mix again? …This country’s economy regularly grew at rates double ours today, when the tariff was in force from 1789 until early in the 20th century.

But he points out that other factors deserve the credit. Especially the absence of any type of taxation on income.

…there was a condition that obtained in these years that is absent today. That condition is that the tariff was in the main the only form of federal taxation. There was no income or profits tax, no wage tax, no tax on investment gains… When the American economy really boomed under the tariff, over the first half of our history, financiers and entrepreneurs plowed money, energy, and ideas into businesses knowing that all receipts were available to recover costs and make a profit. …A company’s pay rates did not have to exceed the wage needs of the employees so as to cover their income and payroll tax obligations, as today. The money left to a company from sales after costs faced no corporate tax. And there was no inheritance tax.

And I’ll add one additional point. One of the good things about tariffs is that they are inherently self-limiting because of the Laffer Curve. As Alexander Hamilton pointed out, the government gets less revenue if trade taxes get too high.

Anyhow, the moral of today’s story is that tariffs are bad, but they are less bad than the modern welfare/administrative state.

But here’s the challenge.

If we want to solve the problems caused by the western world’s second-most-depressing chart, we’ll need to figure out how to reverse all the bad policies that produced the western world’s most-depressing chart.

Unfortunately, Trump has been making government even bigger, so the likelihood of returning to a tariff-only tax system has dropped from 0.00005 percent to 0.00001 percent.

The libertarian response to the early economic

Policy

World Economic Freedom Economic Liberty

With the possible exception of a few extreme environmentalists, everyone agrees that robust long-run growth is a key to a better society. An unprecedented jump in growth, for instance, is what enabled the western world to escape poverty, resulting in the famous “hockey stick” of modern prosperity.

Maintaining growth is an ongoing challenge for developed countries, to be sure, and it’s also vitally important to help developing nations grow and prosper.

Which is why policymakers should focus on the policies that generate good outcomes.

Libek, a think tank in Serbia, has released a study on this topic. They start by pointing out that we now have some good measures of economic liberty in various nations.

…the Economic Freedom in the World Index in 1996 by the Fraser Institute…was the first methodological tool that measured intrusion in functioning of the market process by government entities, either directly through government intervention or indirectly though regulation and market institutions. A similar index, Index of Economic Freedom, produced by the Wall Street Journal and the Heritage Foundation soon followed… Since this very successful tool was invented, it has been widely employed in empirical studies…, the most important were concerning the role of economic freedom in fostering economic growth. …empirical studies mostly concluded that there is a significant connection between economic freedom and economic growth.

Since I’m always citing the Fraser Index and the Heritage Index, I agree that these are very helpful sources of data.

And lots of academics also use those numbers.

So Libek took a close look at this wealth of empirical research.

Libek conducted a metastudy regarding economic freedom in December 2017, with the aim to reexamine the connection between economic freedom and economic growth in published empirical studies. …Using Google scholar mechanism…92 studies…consider the connection between economic freedom and economic growth. Out of these, a predominant majority of 86 studies (93.5%) finds a positive correlation or connection between them, while only 6 studies (6.5%) have less positive results. …This metastudy shows that empirical studies have predominantly found that economic freedom is associated with higher economic growth rates, while there is only one study claim otherwise and results of other 5 are less conclusive. This high rate of concurrence between economists is highly unusual, given the fact that economist tend to often disagree even among theoretically more accepted topics. Therefore, it is conclusively shown that higher level of economic freedom, ceteris paribus, leads to higher economic growth.

The folks at Libek have a big incentive to care about these issues because Serbia is a reform laggard.

Here’s a chart comparing economic freedom in Serbia with other European regions.

And here is why economic reform is so vitally important for the people of Serbia.

Serbia remains one of the poorest countries in Europe, measured by GDP, with just 5 000 euros per capita. These low growth rates do not provide a possibility for development and closing the gap with more advanced European economies. …A study estimated future economic gains through higher economic freedom (Gwartney and Lawson 2004) reporting that 1-point increase in economic freedom (measured on a 1 to 10 scale) would increase long term rate of economic growth for 1.24% of GDP. Therefore, if Serbia would increase its score from the current 6.75 to 7.75 points – the approximately current level of Austria or Germany, Serbian long-term growth rate would increase from the envisaged 2% in 2017 (and estimated by the IMF to stand at 3.5% in 2018 and 2019) to 5.25% in 2020 and afterwards. This growth rate would enable a fast income convergence with other European countries, with GDP level per capita doubling in 14 years.

Amen. Serbia has the capacity to “converge,” but that won’t happen without economic liberalization.

For non-Serbians, the parts of the Libek report that will be of greatest interest deal with examples of nations that are out-performing their neighbors.

The importance of economic freedom is well shown by the most important case studies from different continents: Chile (South America), Singapore and Korea (East Asia), and Botswana (Africa). In all these prominent cases, economic freedom propelled these societies to a high and sustainable economic growth which led them to prosperity, compared to their neighbors.

The report specifically looks at the long-run data for countries that have sharply diverged from regional competitors.

Let’s start by comparing Chile with the rest of South America. As you can see, Chile’s dramatic economic liberalization led to far higher levels of national prosperity.

Now let’s compare Botswana to the rest of Sub-Saharan Africa.

I did something similar back in 2015 and also earlier this year, so this remarkable data is impressive but not surprising.

Last but not least, let’s compare Singapore and South Korea to their neighbors.

Once again, we see a compelling link between economic liberty and economic outcomes.

This is dramatically evident when comparing South Korea and North Korea, but you also see remarkable numbers when comparing Singapore with the United States.

The lesson is not that nations need perfect policy (even Hong Kong has some statism). Instead, the message is that governments should strive to increase economic liberty – hopefully in big ways but even small reforms are helpful – so that there’s more “breathing room” for the economy’s productive sector.

Data from economic freedom indexes again establish

Opinion

Bernie Sanders stands at the podium on stage during a walk through before the start of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on July 25, 2016. (Photo: SS)

Bernie Sanders stands at the podium on stage during a walk through before the start of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on July 25, 2016. (Photo: SS)

When Crazy Bernie became a national political phenomenon back in 2015, I pointed out that the Vermont Senator isn’t actually a socialist.

As I remarked in this brief interview with Melissa Francis, the technical definition of socialism involves government ownership and control over the “means of production.” In other words, policies such as collective farms and government factories.

It’s possible that Bernie Sanders secretly supports those policies, but his public positions are conventional statism – i.e., lots of redistribution, cronyism, and intervention.

Those policies are destructive and harmful, to be sure. Just think about basket-case economies such as Greece and Venezuela.

But not all left-wing economic policies are socialism. Which was the point I made two years ago when I put together this diagram.

Leftwing Spectrum Graphic

As you can see, I think Sen. Sanders belongs on the far left, but he represents a different strand of statism. At least when compared to conventional socialists or totalitarian socialists.

And I categorize the Nordic nations as “rational leftists” to provide a benchmark, even though those countries are very pro-market by global standards, thanks to their laissez-faire approaches to trade, regulation, etc.

I”ll close by acknowledging that language does evolve. So perhaps I’m being pedantic by drawing a distinction between ordinary Bernie-style leftism and socialism. After all, I doubt 57 percent of Democrats and 16 percent of Republicans actually favor collective farms and government-run companies (at least I hope not).

P.S. Modern leftists don’t want to end private ownership, but they do want the government to control the economy. That approach was given a test last century.

Bernie Sanders is a conventional statist. He's

Politics

With Leader McConnell’s Help, President Trump Has Notched Two Records in Two Years for Most Federal Appeals Judges Appointed

President Donald Trump speaks to the press alongside Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R), Republican of Kentucky, in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, DC, October 16, 2017. (Photo: Reuters)

President Donald Trump speaks to the press alongside Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R), Republican of Kentucky, in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, DC, October 16, 2017. (Photo: Reuters)

On September 4, hearings on the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) will begin in the U.S. Senate. Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Ia., made it clear he intends to push forward with the nomination.

In July, the president nominated Judge Kavanaugh to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy, the Court’s traditional swing vote who announced in June he would retire, effective July 31, 2018. With the ideological lean of the Court at stake, it will justifiably receive intense media coverage.

Judge Kavanaugh, 53, serves on the powerful U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. If confirmed, he would be the second-year president’s second appointment to the nation’s highest court.

But little attention has been paid to the judicial branch’s down-ballot equivalent.

There are 13 appellate courts that sit below the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Courts of Appeals. The nation’s second-highest court will hear controversial cases on immigration, abortion, religious freedom, and other issues that will have a significant impact on public policy and the president’s legacy.

The 94 federal judicial districts are organized into 12 regional circuits, each of which has a court of appeals. The 13th is the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which has nationwide jurisdiction to hear appeals in specialized cases.

President Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kty., have been reshaping these federal courts.

Until this week, they had pushed through 24 federal appeals court judge confirmations, already the most for a second-year presidency. On Thursday, the U.S. Senate confirmed the nominations of Julius Ness Richardson (81 – 8) and A. Marvin Quattlebaum Jr. (62 – 28), both for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit.

With those two confirmations on Thursday, President Trump and Leader McConnell have pushed through 26 federal appeals court judge confirmations.

It’s two more than last year’s record and the highest number for a second-year presidency.

For nearly two years, the pace of the overhaul has been relatively consistent.

On December 14, 2017, President Trump and Leader McConnell set a record for the most federal appeals judges confirmed during the first year of a presidency. The U.S. Senate confirmed the 12th nominee that day, breaking the previous record held jointly by Presidents Richard M. Nixon and John F. Kennedy.

There are 179 judgeships for the U.S. Courts of Appeals. Those 26 appointments already account for roughly 15%.

Naturally, the balance of power in one branch of government will determine the balance of power in another. The battleground for the House of Representatives has received more media attention, but it’s far less likely the Democrats take control of the upper chamber in November.

There are 11 vacancies left to fill. If Leader McConnell is still at the helm, the Trump Administration could appoint as much as 21% of the U.S. Courts of Appeals.

People’s Pundit Daily (PPD) has also cross-referenced important and controversial cases to demonstrate the real-world impact these appointments can have on public policy. The results of our findings will be published in a follow-up article in this series.

President Trump and Leader McConnell have been

Opinion

Cut fence and an American flag as a 3D concept illustrating Illegal immigration. (Photo: AdobeStock)

Cut fence and an American flag as a 3D concept illustrating Illegal immigration. (Photo: AdobeStock)

As the debate continues over border security, one of the more contentious points seems to be the Democrats sincere belief that America should have open borders.

At a recent campaign event, Minnesota Congressman and Democratic National Committee (DNC) Deputy Chairman Keith Ellison proudly displayed his views on a t-shirt which read, “I don’t believe in borders.” Keep in mind that Mr. Ellison is currently running to be the number one law enforcement official in the state.

But don’t worry folks, nothing to see here.

So, how would an open border policy impact the future of America? Unfortunately, the answer is quite simple. In a video by America Working and Keefer Productions, we find out that the U.S. is already an open border country.

The United States currently has 1,284 miles with no fencing at all on our southern border with Mexico. You read that right, NO FENCING AT ALL! In light of the recent discovery of a radical Muslim training camp in New Mexico, this should further the cause of building “America’s Great Wall,” as depicted in the video.

When then-candidate Donald Trump made his infamous trip down the escalator in 2015 to announce his candidacy, border security became his number one issue. Since his election day victory, it has remained front and center under his administration.

Imagine how many more Americans would support building a wall if they were aware of how many miles of our country remain completely without defense from illegal crossings. When you watch the video, you might also take note of the fact that the most ardent opponents of securing our borders spoke quite differently just a few years back.

America Working is a grassroots organization providing some of the most informative videos on issues facing the American people. If you like the video, please consider a small donation to keep their efforts going.

From legal loopholes to the 1,284 miles

Polls

Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., Ranking Member on the Senate Subcommittee on Investigations, asks a question on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, June 23, 2016, during the subcommittee's hearing to review billing and customer service practices in the cable and satellite television industry. (Photo: AP)

Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., Ranking Member on the Senate Subcommittee on Investigations, asks a question on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, June 23, 2016, during the subcommittee’s hearing to review billing and customer service practices in the cable and satellite television industry. (Photo: AP)

CFG Action released a new poll showing Republican Josh Hawley with a 7-point lead over Senator Claire McCaskill in Missouri. Attorney General Hawley’s support increased to 48% — nearing the crucial 50-percent threshold — and his image increased by 5 points since mid-July.

Meanwhile, support for the vulnerable incumbent held steady at 41% and her image is underwater 46%/49%, with 98% name recognition. Mr. Hawley, who crushed his Democratic challenger in 2016, has a name ID at 91%.

“This latest polling demonstrates just how vulnerable a candidate Claire McCaskill is,” said CFG Action Missouri President David McIntosh. “The fact of the matter is when voters learn the truth about McCaskill and her willingness to overlook her husband’s history of abuse, they want nothing to do with her. She’s a hypocrite who is out of touch with the people of Missouri.”

President Donald Trump trounced Hillary Clinton in The Show-Me State, 56.77% to 38.14%. Worse still, ticket-splitting fell to 0% in 2016, an ominous sign for any incumbent running in a state their party’s presidential nominee did not carry.

Mr. Hawley soundly defeated Democrat Teresa Hensley in the 2016 race for attorney general, 61.1% to 38.9%, or by more than 500,000 votes.

“What this polling shows is the tremendous strength of Josh Hawley’s candidacy and his ability to consolidate Republicans, all while Claire McCaskill is losing ground in the middle,” stated CFG Action Missouri strategist Jeff Roe. “Outside groups like CFG Action Missouri are successfully defining the thirty-year reign of Claire McCaskill and driving undecided voters away from her.”

CFG Action Missouri — an extension of the free-market, right-leaning Club for Growth — has spent over $2 million on TV and digital ads targeting Senator McCaskill’s record of putting her own interests above those of Missouri voters.

“We’re lucky voters aren’t listening to what the leftist editorial boards write, and instead they are making up their own minds when it comes to who is best suited to represent Missouri.”

The U.S. Senate race in Missouri is rated Leans Republican on the PPD Election Projection Model.

The survey was conducted for CFG Action Missouri by WPA Intelligence. WPAi conducted 501 live telephone interviews (38% cell phone) on August 12-14, 2018. The margin of error is ±4.4%.

CFG Action released a new poll showing

Economy

E-Commerce Retail Sales Graphic (Source: Adobe Stock)

E-Commerce Retail Sales Graphic (Source: Adobe Stock)

E-Commerce retail sales gained in the second quarter (Q2) 2018, rising 3.9% to $123.7 billion from the previous quarter. That compares to a downwardly revised 3.6% gain in Q1 2018 and a 3.2 gain in Q4 2017.

The U.S. Census Bureau and Commerce Department (CoD) joint report estimates total Q2 retail sales at $1,327.9 billion, an increase of 1.6% from the first quarter of 2018. The Q2 2018 e-commerce estimate rose 15.2% from Q2 2017, while total retail sales increased 5.7% in the same period.

E-commerce sales in Q2 2018 accounted for 9.6% of total sales, up from 9.5% of total retail sales in the previous quarter.

Not adjusted, the estimate of e-commerce retail sales in the U.S. for Q2 2018 totaled $120.4 billion, an increase of 6.4% from Q1 2018. The Q2 2018 e-commerce estimate increased 15.4% from Q2 2017, while total retail sales rose 5.3% in the same period.

E-commerce sales in Q2 2018 accounted for 9.0% of total retail sales, on a non-adjusted basis.

E-Commerce retail sales rose 3.9% to $123.7

Economy

Consumer Spending and Consumer Sentiment. (Photo: AP)

Consumer Spending and Consumer Sentiment. (Photo: AP)

The Survey of Consumers preliminary reading finds the Index of Consumer Sentiment slipped to 95.3 in August, the lowest level since September 2017. The decline was driven exclusively by reactions to interest rate hikes from households in the bottom third of the income distribution.

The Current Economic Conditions index fell from 114.4 in the final reading for July to 107.8 in the preliminary reading for August. The Index of Consumer Expectation held steady at 87.3.

“The dominating weakness reflected much less favorable assessments of buying conditions, mainly due to less favorable perceptions of market prices,” Richard Curtain, the chief economist at Survey of Consumers, said. “Buying conditions for large household durables sank to the lowest level in nearly four years.”

“When asked to explain their views, consumers voiced the least favorable views on pricing for household durables in nearly ten years, since October 2008.”

Consumers also expressed that it was a less favorable time to buy automobiles. Prices were seen less favorably than at anytime since the close of 1984. With the economy improving, the Federal Open Market Committee has increased interest rates and the rate at which they will ascend after years of being held at near-zero.

Interestingly, consumers said they expect an inflation rate for the year ahead of 2.9%. That’s unchanged from their views the previous month. Still, after years of skirting the impact of interest rates, Mr. Curtain said consumers are more “sensitive” to even low inflation rates.

“The data suggest that consumers have become much more sensitive to even relatively low inflation rates than in past decades,” he said. “As is usual at this stage in the business cycle, some price resistance has been neutralized by rising wages, although the falloff in favorable price perceptions has been much larger than ever before recorded.”

“Overall, the data indicate that consumers have little tolerance for overshooting inflation targets, and to the benefit of the Fed, interest rates now play a more decisive role in purchase decisions.”

The preliminary reading of consumer sentiment for

Politics

Paul Manafort, senior advisor to Republican U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump, exits following a meeting of Donald Trump's national finance team at the Four Seasons Hotel in New York City, U.S., June 9, 2016.

Paul Manafort, senior advisor to Republican U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump, exits following a meeting of Donald Trump’s national finance team at the Four Seasons Hotel in New York City, U.S., June 9, 2016.

The jury in the federal trial against Paul Manafort ended the first day of deliberations with a series of questions. U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III read aloud a note detailing four questions from the jury.

The note asked Judge Ellis to repeat the definition of reasonable doubt, and covered foreign financial accounts, shell companies and evidence in the case.

The defense took that as good news.

One source close to the defense team told Fox News, “We’re in the game.”

Andrew McCarthy, a former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York., cautioned not to read too much into the note. He specifically mentioned the request to repeat the definition of reasonable doubt.

“Don’t read too much into reasonable doubt note. Sometimes suggests jury has real doubt,” he tweeted. “Sometimes means most jurors think 1 or 2 jurors need to be reminded RD doesn’t mean ‘all possible doubt.’ To early to tell.”

Mr. Manafort, 69, stood trial for nearly three weeks and is now awaiting a verdict on tax evasion and bank fraud charges. It is the first real test of the prosecutions resulting from the investigation led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller III.

He has been accused of hiding income from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) earned lobbying the Clinton Department and Capitol Hill Democrats through The Podesta Group on behalf of the then-pro Russian government in Ukraine.

Neither he nor The Podesta Group, which was founded by former Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta and his brother, were registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).

He is also accused of fraudulently obtaining millions of dollars in bank loans.

Mr. Mueller needs a unanimous verdict from the 12 jurors to convict Mr. Manafort on each of the 18 counts against him. But this trial isn’t the end of his legal troubles, regardless of the verdict.

He is also facing charges in a separate federal court case in Washington, D.C., including allegations of conspiring against the United States, conspiring to launder money, failing to register as an agent of a foreign principal and providing knowlindgly false statements to federal investigators.

Manafort's defense team took the jury's note

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